In order to allow blind people to live as normally as possible, a number of reading systems have been proposed over the years which allow blind people to read printed materials. These include various forms of optical character recognition systems which read the text for the blind person and produce an oral or tactile display of the text. Other systems rely on the braille tactile reading system, but present the braille letters in a more convenient format. Several recent devices utilize an electromechanically driven braille cell for tactilly displaying text which has been recorded electromagnetically.
One example of a recent system shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,356 shows an electromechanical braille cell where the ends of rods protrude through openings in a braille reading surface. When the rods are energized, the ends which protrude form a braille letter. Such a device would allow braille reading of electromagnetically recorded text, however there is no provision for the control of the speed of reading by the operator. Accordingly, the reader may not easily adjust the device to his own reading speed nor allow him to reread any characters which he has missed.
Another device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,936 presents an entire page of braille characters in response to text stored on a taped cassette. While such a device allows the reader to move at his own speed across the page, it requires a large number of electromechanical devices and a relatively large device for displaying the entire page. Thus, such a device could be expensive and bulky.
An earlier device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,745 shows an electric braille recording and reproducing system where information which is recorded can be retrieved tactilly. However, this device does not include an easily operated control device for controlling the speed of presentation of the characters.
Thus, devices such as these have many shortcomings in that they are complex electronically, bulky, expensive and difficult to operate. Many of these devices make it difficult for the operator to reread a character or to move through the page at his own speed.